


Pieces

by nouseforaname



Series: Recovery Mode [10]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25643095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouseforaname/pseuds/nouseforaname
Summary: The new year just got here and Dom's already off to a weird start.
Relationships: Darlene Alderson/Dominique DiPierro
Series: Recovery Mode [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625374
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Pieces

Dom’s eyes flutter open, and for a second she forgets where she is. She lifts her head off the backrest of the couch, her eyes blearily scanning the dim room, and she deduces she’s in Elliot’s apartment. Her brain, foggy with the remnants of alcohol, tries to recall the evening’s earlier events, but she can only come up with hazy bits and pieces.

It isn’t until then that she notices a weight pressing on her lap. She glances downward, and she blinks when she finds Darlene’s tousled brown head. She’s curled up, rolled on her side with her nose pressed into Dom’s shirt. Dom bends over to look at the floor, and a small smile curves the corners of her lips when she spots Flipper snoozing belly-up by her feet.

She gently pulls her fingers through Darlene’s hair as she continues to take in her surroundings. She spots a few used plates on the kitchen table, along with a crumpled microwaveable bag of popcorn. There is a small cluster of empty beer bottles sitting on the counter, and that’s when Dom suddenly remembers it’s New Years.

Her thoughts are interrupted with the unmistakable sound of a keyboard clicking. She can see a sharp blue light coming from Elliot’s bedroom, and she quirks an eyebrow before digging into her pocket for her phone. It’s almost three in the morning.

She quickly lowers her head so she can plant a kiss on Darlene’s cheek, and then she carefully slides out from underneath her so she can see what Elliot’s up to. When she approaches his desk, she can see that he’s hunched over his computer, busily typing away at something. She squints at his screen; it’s mottled with code.

“Elliot?”

The clicking stops. The silhouette half-turns in his chair to address her.

“Burning the midnight oil, Agent DiPierro?”

She can see Elliot and she can hear Elliot, but her gut is telling her that the person sitting a few feet away from her _isn’t_ Elliot. There’s something different about his expression and the way he’s carrying himself, but she can’t quite put her finger on what it is.

Elliot - or whoever the hell he is - must’ve read her mind, because he’s shaking his head and chuckling. “Nothing gets past you, huh sweetheart?”

Okay, this _definitely_ isn’t Elliot. “What are you talking about?”

“Your face kinda says it all.” He smirks and holds his hands up in defeat. “You got me, officer - I’m not Elliot. I’m just his imaginary friend.”

Dom swallows, unsure of where to go from here. This feels like a weird dream. “You seem very real to me.”

“That’s awfully nice of you.” He laughs again. “At least someone around here acknowledges I exist.” He gestures at Elliot’s bed. “Come and sit. Why not ring in the new year with some friendly rapport?”

There’s a sinister lilt to his speech, like he’s luring her into something. She’s not sure if she trusts him or not, but what would he be planning? Unless he’s been secretly plotting to take down the top one percent of the one percent again, Dom doesn’t see a reason why she shouldn’t indulge him. She sits at the foot of the bed, but keeps a reasonable space between them. “Uh,” She brushes her hair away from her face. “So, what do I call you, if you aren’t Elliot? You have a name, don’t you?”

“He calls me Mr. Robot.” He shrugs. “It’s from the st-”

“Store his father ran after leaving E Corp.” Dom finishes for him, and he raises his eyebrows at her, clearly impressed.

“Someone did their homework.” He simpers, and Dom feels a chill run down her spine. “You know, we’ve never had a chance to shoot the shit. It’s a shame we never really spoke; I’m sure you would’ve loved to pick my brain.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t know Elliot had DID at the time, so I had no idea you existed. I heard that you were the mastermind behind things, though - with fsociety and all that.”

He snickers, and she furrows her brow in confusion. “I wouldn’t call myself the mastermind.” He sounds like he’s referring to an inside joke that she isn’t a part of.

“But weren’t you ultimately responsible for Five/Nine?”

“You can say that, yeah.” He nods. “If you picture fsociety and Five/Nine as a physical structure - let’s say a skyscraper - I’d be the architect. I drew up the blueprints.”

Dom leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees, hunching over as she brushes a hand through her hair again. “So all of that was your idea, but someone else executed it?”

“Bingo.” He finger guns her, swivelling in his chair.

“Okay,” Dom frowns as the cogs in her brain whir at top speed. “So if there’s blueprints, you’d need a construction crew to build everything out. That’s what Elliot was for, right?”

“Not exactly.” Mr. Robot shrugs. “But yes, among others.” His eyes flit towards something else; Dom glances over her shoulder to see what he’s looking at, and her heart leaps to her throat when she realizes he’s referring to the sleeping girl on the couch.

“What do you mean by _not exactly?”_ Dom hesitantly returns her gaze to him. “Are there other...people?”

“Sure is.” He taps his temple with an index finger. “It’s a full house in here. Never a dull day.”

“So one of those other...entities...” She awkwardly clears her throat. “Sorry, I don’t really know what to call them. You.”

“You can just say people.” He laughs. “It’s a safe space. No need to get all PC now.”

“Sure.” Dom’s hand seems permanently fused to her hair. “One of the others was...well, I guess that makes them the foreman, the leader of the crew. Then you have the crew itself.” She jerks her head towards Darlene. “Cisco, Romero...all of them. They did the dirty work.”

“I’d say he was more like the engineer.” Mr. Robot crosses his arms. “I came up with the blueprints, but he made sure the design was feasible, and he focused mainly on the behind the scenes stuff. Your Sleeping Beauty over there-” He makes a curt nod in Darlene’s direction. “-would be the foreman. She and the rest of them were on the front lines.”

“Which is why all of them are dead except for her.” Dom’s frown deepens as she tries to process everything. “Were you expecting to lose people like that? Cisco was murdered. Trenton and Mobley were framed. So many people suffered for you. Don’t you feel any remorse at all?”

The crooked smile on his face doesn’t waver. “You can’t have a revolution without a few sacrifices.”

Another chill slithers down her back. “Did you at least try to protect them?” Her eyes anxiously glance back to Darlene, and she can tell he noticed because he suddenly lets out another dark chuckle.

“We aren’t running a daycare here. They were fully functioning adults who knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. They were well aware of the risks involved.” He raises an arm to gesture towards Darlene. “As for her, well...I kind of had no choice but to keep an eye on her. She’s important to him - to us, I guess - so I had to make sure she was intact, at the very least.”

“And by _important to us,_ you mean...?” She gestures with her hands, motioning for him to elaborate.

“She’s his only tether to reality - _Elliot’s_ only tether to reality.” He rubs his face with one hand. “The Elliot who woke up in the hospital isn’t the same Elliot who hacked the Deus Group and accidentally allowed seventy-one buildings to blow to smithereens. The Elliot you know now - your chum, your fellow pig - _that’s_ the real Elliot. He was able to come back because of your beau.”

Dom can feel a headache coming on, and it’s not just from the alcohol she had earlier. “I’m having trouble following you.”

“I’m surprised you managed to get this far.” He chuckles. “The Mastermind - the engineer - he’s the person you were chasing after when you were doing your little investigation with the feds. Your buddy was never really around that year. I guess you can say he was asleep.”

“That’s why he couldn’t remember everything all at once after he woke up.” Dom nods slowly as she begins to put the pieces together. “But why keep him dormant? Were you afraid he was going to interrupt your plans or something?”

“No.” That smirk finally fades away, transitioning into something more grim. “It was to keep him safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“The world.” He says this as if he expected her to know that already. “Have you seen this place? You can’t walk a foot out of your own room without being bombarded by advertising. Cucks in Armani suits are telling us what to say, what to wear, what to eat, what to drive. Our self-worth is determined by how many likes we can get on Instagram. We’re no longer in control of our own lives - or maybe we’ve never truly been in control in the first place.”

Dom raises an eyebrow. “You do realize that those things are kind of inevitable, right? They suck, sure, but I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon.“

He scoffs. “So what, you’re just content with the iron fist of capitalism squeezing the life out of you? You’re really just gonna let them have their way?”

“I didn’t say that.” Dom counters. “Look, I get where you’re coming from, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve been living a certain way for so long that people have kind of just gotten used to it. Capitalism has its hands in pretty much everything nowadays - our government, our education, justice, and healthcare systems, our economy, our environment. If we want to actually get rid of it, we’d have to get rid of all of those too. We’d need to scrap everything and start from scratch. In theory it’s a great idea, and it’s probably what we need, but everyone will have to fully commit in order for it to happen properly, which means making huge changes to their everyday lives. As romantic as it sounds to just tear it all down and start over, I don’t think the majority of the world is ready to do any of that.”

“Humans spent their entire existence adapting to change.” Mr. Robot reaches for something at the end of the desk; it’s the party hat Darlene forced Elliot to wear earlier, the one covered in gold foil and glitter. He grins as he straps it on. “This wouldn’t be any different.”

“I guess not, but I think it’s safe to say that most people are comfortable where they are, even if they are a little miserable.”

“So you’d rather be comfortable in your own misery than be free?”

“You already tried saving the world once.” Dom points out. “Five/Nine ended up nearly destroying our country. Thousands of people died. The economy was in shambles. Jobs and businesses were lost. We were living in a landfill. Tensions rose between the US and the rest of the world. You didn’t destroy capitalism; if anything, you proved that we’ve come to a point where we kind of can’t function without it.”

“All the more reason to tear it all down.” His grin grows wider, almost Cheshire-like. “So what, your solution is to just make our chains longer? Give ourselves a little more elbow room so we can find the perfect selfie angle?”

“I’m just saying that it’s not as easy as you’re making it out to be.” Dom rubs her temples. “If you keep this up, you’ll be fighting your entire life, and Elliot would be left to deal with the fallout - either that or you’d need to put him back to sleep. You’d have to keep him asleep forever if you want to keep him safe. Wouldn’t it make more sense to help him navigate through the real world and find a way to be happy the best way he can, instead of just pulling the wool over his eyes while you spend forever chasing an unattainable dream? I agree with you - capitalism sucks, but I really don’t think it’s going anywhere fast, so we might as well suck it up and do whatever we can to make ourselves and our loved ones happy while we’re still on this stupid earth. You can call me a coward if you want. You can call me a quitter too. I don’t care. I’m just doing the best I can with what I’ve got, and if you truly know what’s best for Elliot you would do the same.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “You’re one smart cookie. A true realist - I have no choice but to respect that. No wonder he likes you.”

Dom can feel the beginnings of embarrassment burning the tips of her ears. “Like I said, I’m just doing what I can. Elliot’s my friend. I want him to be happy - _really_ happy, in this present reality, and not hidden away somewhere while his alter ego pretends he knows how to fix everything.”

He shrugs. “I’ll be the first to admit that it shouldn’t have taken me this long to realize that. Maybe it’s because I hated seeing him suffer so much that I felt like this was the only option.”

“Were you...” Dom hesitates for a second, trying to figure out how to properly word the rest of her sentence. “Were you there when...the abuse happened?”

He turns his chair away from her, dropping his head like he’s ashamed of something. “Yes.”

The silence pressing down on them feels like it weighs tonnes. Dom slowly inhales as she carefully chooses her next words. “So, you’ve been with him a long time, then. You’ve seen everything that’s ever happened to him.” She pauses, her eyes growing wide with a sudden realization. “That’s why you did what you did. You wanted to make the world a better place so it wouldn’t hurt him anymore.”

Mr. Robot doesn’t reply. He keeps his chair turned away from her, clasping his hands on his lap with his head still bent. If it weren’t for his knee frantically bouncing, she would’ve thought he had fallen asleep.

“This world is full of terrible people, Dom.” He finally speaks up a few seconds later, his tone weary, almost defeated. “People are vile. Selfish. Greedy. Vain. They’ll use others to get ahead. They won’t think twice about stepping on you if it means they can get what they want. It’s a dog-eat-dog kind of world out there, and he wasn’t ready for it. He wouldn’t have been able to handle so much cruelty, not when he already experienced it firsthand so early in his life.”

“And I get that, but keeping him away from all of it isn’t going to get him any more prepared. He’s going to have to face the truth eventually.” Dom rakes her fingers through her hair, unknowingly making a few strands stick out at the back. “The fact of the matter is that this world is always going to have terrible people in it. You can never really make them go away. The best thing we can do is learn how to deal with them so we don’t let them break us. We learn how to be strong on our own so we know how to protect ourselves when they try to hurt us. We get stronger and wiser every time we overcome a terrible person. It’s how we grow.”

“A girl after my own heart.” He leans back in his seat; the Cheshire grin from earlier makes a comeback. “Where have you been all my life? You would’ve made things a lot easier if we met sooner.”

She laughs nervously, her hand jumping to her hair for the umpteenth time. “I guess you can say we’re in the same boat, so I know where you’re coming from.” She swallows hard as her cheeks begin to warm up. “I know what it’s like to love someone to the point where you want to change the way the entire universe works just so they can be happy.”

Mr. Robot’s eyes flit over to Darlene again, and her blush gets worse. “You’ve gone hook, line, and sinker, haven’t you?” He laughs, and she clears her throat and turns away from him. “Don’t know what you or Elliot see in her, honestly. She’s good at what she does, I’ll give her that, and she can be resourceful when she puts in the effort, but she’s a loose cannon, and that’s putting it lightly.”

Dom narrows her eyes. “If you’ve been around since the beginning, then you’d know she’s been through some shit too.”

“Sure, but she’s got a mostly solid head on her shoulders.” He replies dismissively. “She’s crazy, but she’s a scrapper. She’s got some fight in her. She’s always been able to do things without anybody’s help. I never had to worry about her, even if she let shit get out of hand sometimes.”

“It’s that exact kind of mindset that made her feel like Elliot never cared for her in the first place.” Dom’s tone hardens, but when he laughs at her, her expression turns confused. “What?”

“She left when she couldn’t handle it anymore. She abandoned him and left him to suffer on his own.” He glares at Darlene’s sleeping form. “She’s a coward. Weak willed.”

Dom’s hands unknowingly curl into fists, tight and trembling against her thighs. “And can’t you see that she regrets all of it? They were just kids. How could you expect them to know how to handle all of those terrible things on their own? They were scared and confused. They didn’t know how to talk about it. It was taking a toll on them; they were going through their own personal hell.”

“She had no fucking idea what was going on with him.” He spits back.

“But she could see that _something_ was going on, and she wanted to help. She just didn’t know how - and now that she _does_ know, she’s doing everything she can. Better late than never.” Dom shakes her head. “And are we just going to forget that she had her own problems too, and he didn’t notice them either? Their suffering was brought on by the same people, but it was affecting them in different ways, and neither of them knew what to do.” For some reason, she feels like crying. “She never gave up on him, you know. She never stopped caring about him and she always, _always_ believed in him. She loves her brother more than anything else and she would do anything for him. I’ve seen it firsthand, and I know you have too.”

Mr. Robot is smirking again. “If she loves him more than anything else, why do you love her? If this building was burning to the ground and she had to choose between saving you or him, you know she’d choose him every time, without hesitation. Doesn’t that make you feel a little inferior, like all this effort you’re putting into her is for nothing?”

She gawks at him. “It’s not about who she loves more. She knows the both of us well enough to figure out which one of us needs the extra hand in that kind of situation.” She sighs again as she messes up her hair. “I don’t think you can quantify the way you feel about someone. It’s _how_ you love the different people in your life, the ways you work around your differences so that you become compatible for each other, that matter most. You become a unique version of yourself for every person you care about. We’re kind of just...I dunno, a collage of all the different variations of ourselves that we tailor for the people in our lives.” There’s a brief pause. “She would choose Elliot over me because she knows he’d need it. They’ve been each other’s grounding force for as long as they can remember. It’s only natural that she’d help him first. I would never hold that against her.”

He seems disappointed that he wasn’t able to get under her skin. “That’s why he needs her. I could save the world and make everything perfect, but if she wasn’t in it, he wouldn’t want to be there. He’d lose his sense of purpose.”

“I know.” She replies wearily. “He told me about that dream he had when he was in the hospital.”

“It wasn’t really a dream.” Mr. Robot shakes his head. “It was a loop, a made up world for him to live in while the Mastermind and I tried to fix things on the outside. It was only meant to be a temporary distraction - but like you said, saving the world was taking a lot longer than we anticipated.”

“Why wasn’t she a part of this loop?”

“Because if she was in it, he would’ve immediately known it wasn’t real.” He explains. “I told you - she’s his strongest connection to reality. She’s the one thing tying him to this earth. If she was there, even if she was this wacky, happy-go-lucky, Disney Channel fever dream hallucination that would only exist in a world like that one, he would know right off the bat that something’s wrong. That’s how much she means to him.”

“So,” Dom frowns. “In order to keep him sedated, you had to pretend she didn’t exist.”

“Right. She would’ve been the smelling salts that jolt him awake.”

“Which means,” Dom continues, her brow crinkled in deep thought. “If she died in real life, there wouldn’t be a point in trying to save the world, because no matter how perfect you could’ve made it, it wouldn’t be perfect enough for him if she wasn’t there.”

“Nailed it right on the head.” Mr. Robot smirks.

“Does he...” Dom gestures towards him. “Elliot, I mean. Does he hate you and the others for what you did? You forced him into some imaginary dream world for a year, and the first thing he has to deal with after waking up is a trial for some of the most notorious cyber crimes ever committed in world history. Then he has to deal with rediscovering his abuse all over again.”

“Oh, he gets really pissy about it. It’s hilarious.” He replies casually. “But I think a part of him is thankful.”

“In what way?”

“If we didn’t go through all of the things we went through last year, he wouldn’t be here right now. He’d still be miserable, alone, and afraid. He wouldn’t have his sister.” He jerks his head in her direction. “He wouldn’t have you, either.”

“I guess it really does have to get worse before it gets better.” Dom tugs on a strand of hair. “And we went through the absolute worst, which must be why things are so good now.” She peeks at Darlene out of the corner of her eye, and she blushes when he chuckles at her.

“You know, you just might be the only sign of intelligent life in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” When she rolls her eyes, he shrugs again. “Love’s a powerful thing, Agent DiPierro.” He shifts around in his seat. “You didn’t answer my previous question, by the way.”

“Which one?”

He keeps his eyes trained on her. There’s an intensity to his stare that she’s never seen on Elliot before, and it’s making her a little uncomfortable. “Why do you love her?”

Her earlier bout of embarrassment returns with a vengeance; her cheeks flare up and she anxiously clears her throat as she tries to avoid eye contact. “Elliot knows why.”

“Sure, but I don’t.” He grins, and she rolls her eyes again. She doesn’t believe him, but she’s going to humour him anyway.

“She’s probably the only person who understands me.” She mumbles as her eyes drop to her boots. “And I mean _really_ understands me. There’s nothing I can hide from her, and she feels the same way about me.”

“Well, she hid _something_ from you, and that kind of ruined things for a little while.” He points out with a snarky tone of voice.

“I think a part of me always knew.” Her voice is low as she fiddles with her hands. “After the way she avoided answering all my questions during that first interrogation, something just never felt right. I always had a feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me, and the facts just didn’t line up either. There was proof she was at Susan’s house that night, yet she kept denying everything, and when I showed her the evidence I could read her expression perfectly - she was lying. But I didn’t press her any further.” Dom shakes her head. “Then shit just spiralled out of control from there, and it fell off the wayside for a little while. Maybe that’s why it caught me off guard when she told me. I completely forgot about it until then.”

“And you just let that shit slide?” He’s incredulous. “She confessed to murder, and you - the poster child for law and order - didn’t do anything about it?”

“I could’ve gotten her _and_ Elliot thrown in jail plenty of times before.” She counters. “They would’ve rotted in a cell for the rest of their lives.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.” She throws her hands up in the air. “Why do some people do bad things and get away with it? Why do some people spend their whole lives trying to do the right thing, only to have bad things happen to them?” She huffs and rumples her hair. ”If there’s anything this past year taught me, it’s that each and every single one of us is a little bit of good and bad on the inside. Some of us just listen to one half more than the other. I joined the bureau because I wanted to understand why a person would feel compelled to do that. I wanted to know what would make a person want to listen to the bad part more than the good part...but I just ended up with more questions.”

“So what exactly does this have to do with Darlene?”

“I’m not going to pretend she didn’t pull a lot of stupid shit. She knows I’m still mad about the whole Susan thing and she _definitely_ knows I’m gonna be mad about it for awhile.” She turns her head towards the couch; Darlene had rolled on her stomach, and one arm is drooping over the edge, her fingers barely grazing Flipper’s paw. “She made plenty of mistakes, but what makes her different from any other person who committed a felony is that she’s fully aware of what she did, and she understands - well, she understands _now,_ that she has to deal with the consequences. She knows she shouldn’t have killed Susan, but she also knows that she can’t go back in time and prevent that from happening, so she’s prepared to live with it. She tries _so_ hard, every single day, to make up for everything she’s done. She’s at her brother’s beck and call whenever he needs her. She’s doing great in therapy. She’s more open and honest with me and Elliot. She knows she can talk to either of us if she has something on her mind, and she tries not to bottle it up anymore like she used to. She-” The redhead swallows hard; she almost revealed Darlene’s plan for the future, the one she talked about the day after Christmas, but she managed to stop herself just in time. “Well, maybe there really isn’t such a thing as a good or bad person, but I think we can be as close to good as we can if we acknowledge our mistakes and do everything we can to make things right. We can’t go back to the way things were before the mistake was made, but we can work on improving ourselves so we don’t mess up again. To me, that isn’t cowardly, or a sign of weak will. It takes real courage to admit when you’re wrong, and even more to actually do something about it.” She finally raises her head to face him, her eyes glassy. “That’s why I love her.” She clears her throat. “Well, it’s one of the reasons why.”

He’s nodding slowly, drinking in her words. “So, working on her flaws makes her better than most.”

“I’d say so, yeah.” Dom sucks in a breath. “We’ve all done fucked up things, some more than others, but I think it’s what we do after the deed’s been done that really matters. Not a lot of people can just put their ego aside like that and apologize. Doing so deserves respect, at the very least.”

“That’s a very simplistic way of putting it, but I see where you’re coming from.” He swivels around in his chair again; it creaks slightly under his weight. “It’s not everyday we come across someone who understands us inside and out, someone who’s seen the ugliest parts of ourselves and insists on staying even though we feel like we don’t deserve it. Maybe there really isn’t such a thing as a purely good person like you said, but you’re as close as they come.” He throws her a small smile. It’s kinder, softer; it reminds her of the Elliot she’s most familiar with. “She’s lucky to have someone like you.”

“I guess.” She laughs bashfully. “I wasn’t always like this. I never bought into any of it - dating, love, relationships. It all sounded so…I dunno, like-”

“Bullshit?” He suggests with a sneer, and she snorts.

“Sure - but the more I think about it, I think I only felt that way because it was easier than admitting I was the reason for all of my personal problems.” She shakes her head. “Before all of this happened, I was alone. I was miserable. I wanted to be around people but I didn’t know how to talk to them. I couldn’t string two sentences together without embarrassing myself, and I didn’t know how to fix that, so I pretended my life wasn’t as bad as it actually was by throwing myself into my job.” She shrugs. “It was the only thing that made me feel like I was in control. When I was on duty I felt confident, capable; I could talk to people as long as it was related to work, I was able to get shit done, and I was able to do it well, but when it was time to go home, everything would just...fall apart. I’d walk through the door, take off the badge, put the gun away, and I’d be instantly reminded of how shitty my life really was.”

Mr. Robot’s expression is pensive. “And she changed all of that?”

“She was definitely a part of it.” Dom’s smile is sheepish. “All the shit that happened in the past year kinda forced me to grow up a little. It made me realize that I couldn’t keep living like that anymore. She made me want to get better - not just for myself, but for her too. She needed me, but I couldn’t be there for her the way that I was...so I had to change that. It turns out that I needed her too, but she also had to do a bit of growing on her own first.” She pulls her fingers through her hair. “I guess that’s why things were so messed up between us in the beginning; we just weren’t the right people for each other yet - but we are now, and it’s so easy to see and feel the difference.” She clears her throat. “We took some time apart to grow individually, and now we’re growing together. She pushes me to do better, to _be_ better, and I do the same for her. It’s…nice. It makes me happy, the happiest I’ve been in...I don’t even remember how long it’s been since I felt this way, if I ever felt it at all.” She dips her head a little in a flimsy attempt to hide the blush on her face. “When she told me that I make her happy too, it...it made me feel really good. It just feels good to know that the person I care about most feels the same way about me. It’s like shit finally makes sense now.”

“Sounds like you nabbed the girl of your dreams.” He smirks as her blush worsens. “So that’s why you can spew pretty words about people being collages and how we’re a different version of ourselves for every person we care about.”

Her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess.” She glances over her shoulder, her eyes softening when she spots Darlene dozing on the couch. “I still think it’s really weird that this is where we are now. Things were so different when we first met. We wanted nothing to do with each other. She wasn’t my first or last thought of the day - she wasn’t even in between. There was even a period where I hated her guts and only wished the worst for her. Now...” She turns back to face him, laughing quietly to herself as she throws up her hands. “Now we’re here.”

He chuckles with her. “Like I said - love’s a powerful thing. In a lot of ways it’s bullshit, but when you find it in the right person, you realize that you only thought it was bullshit because you didn’t know what it really was until you found them.”

“Pretty much.” Dom throws him a small smile. “I just...I dunno, I look at her, and I can see everything about her. I see all the little parts that make up who she is, and there’s nothing I don’t like - including the not so pretty parts.” She shrugs. “You’re gonna find pieces like that in everyone you meet. We all have them. It’s just a matter of figuring out which person’s pieces are worth handling.” Her face has never been redder. “I’d do anything to learn how to handle hers.”

“Very poetic.” He leans back in his chair, and her blush somehow gets worse. “You get that off a Hallmark card?”

She snorts. “Shakespeare, actually.”

The both of them meet eyes for a second before breaking out into a bout of quiet chuckling. He looks like he’s about to say something else when a gravelly, soft whine cuts through the darkness.

“Dom?” Darlene twists around on the couch, groaning and rubbing her eyes.

“Duty calls.” He mutters, and she laughs.

“How do I know you aren’t planning on committing international cyberterrorism again?” She skeptically glances at his screen; the seemingly random assortment of characters and symbols blankly stare back at her.

“Oh, this?” He shrugs just as Darlene torpidly sits up, still rubbing at her eyes. “I’m just snooping. Remember when I told you that he gets pissy about all the shit that happened? He takes a lot of extra precautions now, so I’m just making sure he isn’t hiding anything he shouldn’t be hiding, y’know?” He swivels around in his chair so that he’s facing his computer. “Trust me, if I had plans to save the world again, you would’ve known by now.”

She doesn’t fully trust his answer, but she goes with it anyway. “As fucked up as this sounds,” She says as she rises to her feet. “I hope this isn’t the last time we get to talk.”

He throws her a final sly grin. “I have a feeling it won’t be.”

She can feel his eyes on her as she makes her way back to the couch. Dom sits next to Darlene and reaches out to her, cupping a cheek with one hand and tenderly brushing the hair away from her face with the other. “Hey.” She leans in and kisses her on the forehead. “Let’s get some sleep, okay?”

“‘Kay.” Darlene yawns as Dom takes her hands and pulls her to her feet. She presses herself into Dom’s side and turns her head towards Mr. Robot. “Night, Elliot.”

His back is turned to them, his attention fully homed in on the code laid out across his screen. He raises a hand and waves it once; the gold foil party hat is still sitting on his head. “Happy New Year.”

Darlene is way too tired - and possibly still a little drunk - to notice the change in her brother’s behaviour. Dom knows that if she was fully focused, she would’ve immediately figured it out, even from the vague gesture he just gave them. She shakes her head in amusement as she slings an arm around Darlene’s waist before guiding her out of the apartment. Right before she steps through the front door, however, she glances over her shoulder; the keyboard is clicking furiously again, and his silhouette is accentuated by the bright blue glow of his monitor. He’s zoned in on...whatever the hell he’s doing.

She quietly closes the door behind her and reaches into Darlene’s shirt pocket for her keys. Dom drags her into her room and they both undress before crawling into bed together. She wraps an arm around her from behind, nuzzling her face into her dark hair, and she smiles when Darlene purrs contentedly.

“What were you guys talking about?” She mumbles into her pillow.

“Nothing important.” Dom murmurs, dipping her head so she can drop a kiss to the back of Darlene’s shoulder. She notices she’s wearing her blue and white button-up again; at this point she might as well just give it to her.

“Bullshit.” She grumbles with her eyes closed, and Dom laughs as she squeezes her waist. She can’t help but think back to her conversation with Mr. Robot, and her emotions catch up with her; she can feel her throat aching and a sting coming to her eyes.

“I love you.” She rises up just a bit so she can bend over and kiss the corner of her mouth. “So much.” She kisses the spot a second time.

Darlene scrunches up her face in disgust. “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.” She rolls on her back, sleepily glaring up at her. “Seriously, what were you talking about?”

“What?” Dom laughs. “Am I not allowed to tell my girlfriend that I love her?”

Darlene’s expression softens at _my girlfriend._ She reaches up with both hands to frame the redhead’s face. “Wow, you actually said it without looking like you want to kill yourself.”

Dom sinks a little lower and brushes her lips against hers. “I figured I’d try something different, since it’s a new year and everything.”

“Mm,” Darlene closes her eyes again, hazily smiling as Dom kisses her. “I won’t lie, it’s not a bad way to kick things off. Kinda makes me wonder what the rest of the year’s gonna look like.”

Dom grins. “If you like the way things look now, you’re gonna love the rest of it.”

Darlene laughs out of disbelief. “Damn, Dom - can you predict the future now?”

“I can’t.” Dom kisses her again before dropping back on the bed behind her, pulling her close. “I just know it’s gonna be great.”

“How?” Darlene glances over her shoulder to look at her.

Dom grins before leaning in to kiss her a third time, murmuring against her lips.

“It’s just a feeling.”


End file.
